Joe Venditti of Concord Township shows a photo of his grandfather Vito Mansueto, who died in 1959.

The handcrafted tapestry portraying a cathedral in Palermo, Sicily, hangs in a place of honor above the sofa in Joe Venditti's living room.

The tapestry was crafted by hand from memory by his maternal grandfather, Vito Mansueto, who was born in Palermo in 1877 and came to this country as a young man.

"He sewed it all by hand using silk thread and a needle and working with muslin cloth," Venditti said.

It's one of several tapestries rediscovered by the family after the works were relegated to storage and almost forgotten.

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Mansueto came to America the first time in 1903 when he was 26, returned to Sicily for his wife and came back again in 1910, settling in Painesville. He got by in life, but never learned much English.

Venditti said his grandfather died in 1959 when Joe was high-school age and not paying much attention to the activities of his elders. The family lived in north Painesville in a home his father, Salvator Venditti, built on North St. Clair Street in 1935.

"I would come home from high school and remember my grandfather sitting in his chair working on it," he said. "My sister, Mary, who was two years younger, would stop at the old W.T. Grant Department Store in town on her way home from school to pick up silk thread for my grandfather."

The Cathedral of Monreale in Palermo is considered to be one of the great examples of Norman architecture in the world. Dedicated in 1182, today it's one of the most important attractions in Sicily.

"I wish I'd paid more attention to what he was doing or asked my mother more about him," he said. "But I didn't, and now I really regret it."

Venditti said he'd completely forgotten about the tapestry and several others his grandfather crafted until he unearthed them in his attic. When his father died, the wrapped tapestries were among the things moved to Venditti's home, which now is in Concord Township.

Although Vito Mansueto was apparently quite an artist, no one recalls him ever bragging about his work, taking it to shows or trying to sell it. Apparently, his needlework was simply a hobby.

Venditti said his grandfather was employed at the old Diamond Alkali Co. in Painesville Township. In 1950, he joined Wayside Gardens, where he worked until he retired.

"I remember back in the 1960s my father wanted me to enter the Palermo tapestry in the Ohio State Fair in Columbus," Venditti recalled. "I called to find out what was involved, and they told me there was no real security so I would have to stay there and make sure it was OK. I just didn't want to do that, so I never entered it in anything."

But everyone who sees the tapestry agrees it's a true work of art, he said.

He knows his grandfather made the cathedral likeness from memory rather than copying it from a photo because of a small hand-stitched phrase on the back of the tapestry.

"He wrote the date -- 1915 -- and the words 'repspiriva' and 'seppa,' which I had translated by a retired priest friend," he said. Repspiriva translates as "envisioned" while seppa means "silk," he was told.

The tapestry Venditti found wrapped in cloth in his attic was perfectly preserved and accompanied by two others, all about 45 inches wide and 3 feet high. One was finished in 1930, and the last one was completed in 1957 -- just two years before his grandfather died.

"We had them framed, and one is hanging in my sister's home in Leroy, and the other is in my cousin's home in Painesville Township," he said.

He recalls his grandfather working on tapestries with images of peacocks but doesn't remember any of the cathedral tapestries.

"My cousin has the one showing the Duoma in Milan, and my sister has the one showing St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice," Venditti said. "My dad told me my grandfather copied the Venice one from a postcard."

Venditti is retired from Mentor Schools, where he worked as a bus driver, but he has neither the desire nor the talent to follow in his grandfather's footsteps to create his own needlework. He said he learned to darn his socks when he was in the military, but that's the end of his skill with needle and thread.

"My two grandsons have artistic talent, though," he said. "My grandson Charlie Dye is just 8 and does great stuff at St. Gabe's (St. Gabriel School in Concord Township).

"And my David works in construction management, but he's always been able to sketch anything."